Tanzania, Day 11

 March  4, 2012

Looking over past journals, I can see how much I have learned from this trip from the first day. 

• No, there are not lions just hanging around in the middle of town
• Don't show the "business men" your money. They'll be jerks and take it from you. 
• They also lie. That bracelet they want you to buy is probably made out of plastic, not elephant hair. 
• The kids ask for pens, paper, money, and sweets. but sometimes they are just collecting these things to give to adults who will reward them for begging. 

The land here is gorgeous and so full of life. We have seen more mammal species here in two weeks than I have back home in my entire life. 

Today we went to Country Lodge in Karatu, which I liked much better than the last place. While still in town, it's a little more like a gated community and felt a little safer. Today was about learning what local people here do for a living.

We went on a walking tour through town to see the rice fields. A person has to stand guard all day to scare off the birds that want to eat the rice. 

After that, we went to see the people who carved for a living. They carved all of the wooden items that we saw being sold to tourists all around town, and carving is a part of their tribes tradition and they are very good at it. 

The wood they use the most if from far away, where the Masaai are, and they ask for permission to go get it. Because the wood is becoming scarce, they can only take fallen branches or wood from dead trees. 

A tribesman shows us how they carve. They carve according to what "the wood tells them" 

Next we visited a banana plantation, where the tradition was making banana beer. There is a specific kind of banana that they use, and they boil the bananas to get the juice out. They then add it to a boiling concoction of flour and something else, and then they let us try the end result. 

It wasn't bad, but not something I really liked. 

Next we got to see a group in which painting was their way of earning money. One technique they used was using a small knife instead of a paintbrush. There were a lot of impressive pieces there, and they could all be purchased in town. 

The last thing we did that day was to go to lake Maru, where we watched some birds, hippos, and we even saw a Nile monitor lizard and an elephant!